Adventure 2 - Part Two: The Indoor Forest

The ghostly
characters were restored to corporeal form by the amber globe. The characters
who were apparently dead were only in a comatose state, and were revived after
a short while. Whilst in this state, they had vivid dreams of being in a
strange land (Averoigne), and they awoke once the dream reached its conclusion.
I actually used stories from Clark Ashton Smith for the dreams, though none of
them relate to the encounters set in Averoigne later in the module. Lithanor’s
dream was from The Maker of Gargoyles,
Klaus dream was taken from The Disinterment of Venus and Mazaramus had a dream inspired by Mother of Toads. Klaus got enough
experience to advance to 5th level.

The party was
now aware of the other changes that had occurred to them after eating the various
meals in the strange feast, the ESP
ability and the bonus to saves vs poison, as well as the attribute shuffle
caused by eating the tossed salad. They asked if the powers gained were
permanent, to which I answered ‘until further notice’. In other words, these
abilities will last only for the duration of the adventure (not permanently as
stated in the module), but given that seven of the party would otherwise be
dead or permanently ghost-like, I think this is a fair trade. As to the ability
score shuffle, they didn’t fair too badly. The most notable changes were that Gandi
the dwarf had his dexterity increased to 18, while Lithanor had his
constitution increased to 18, and at this point actually has 3 hit points less
than the dwarf! Oh, and these ability score changes are permanent.

At full
strength and ready to venture on again, the party headed through the door at
the eastern end of the mirrored hallway and entered…The Indoor Forest.

One thing I
find slightly amusing about this module is that in the introduction section it
breaks down the various sections of the mansion into distinct parts. Most of
the sections are categorised as dungeon adventures, while the section set in
Averoigne is a wilderness adventure. The Indoor Forest is categorised as a wilderness
adventure, though to my mind technically it is still a dungeon, just in a big
room with a lot of trees and a path.

Anyway, the
party decided to heed the warning given to them by the rakasta and stay on the
path. After about a hundred feet or so, they came across the ominous killer
trees. Sneaky was invisible again (Mazaramus had cast it on her before resting
to rememorize his spells) and snuck past the trees without any problem. The
rest of the party were a bit apprehensive, and decided to slowly advance along
the path between the trees. This was actually a good move, because it limited
the number of trees that could attack the party. Nonetheless, Morgan and
Bhakragh were grabbed by killer trees and pulled towards them. Gandi charged
the tree that had grabbed Bhakragh, while most of the rest of the party used
missile fire to whittle down the trees. Morgan hacked off the branch that had
grabbed him, though Bhakragh was pulled to the mouth of the killer tree that
had grabbed him, causing automatic damage. The tree was slain before it could
inflict any more damage, with Gandi causing massive amounts of damage with his
double hand axe attacks. The fighters in the party decided to switch to melee
attacks and take on the trees at close quarters and risk the branch attacks.
The trees were managing to grab party members but, more often than not, were
slain before they could pull them towards their mouths for a bite attack.
Within a few rounds, the party had slain all the killer trees on the side of
the path, and though four party members had themselves been grabbed and bitten,
the damage was relatively slight.

Sneaky (who
had stayed out of the fighting and was still invisible) and Lithanor, noticed
about a dozen more killer trees further off the path on either side. However,
they were not advancing, and the party decided that it would be foolish to try
and take them on.

Lithanor
considered taking them out with missile fire, seeing as he had plenty of arrows
and could just stay out of their reach. Yes, Lithanor has at this point 340
arrows in his quiver, believe it or not. In Basic/Expert, it has a footnote on
the equipment tables that says that encumbrance of arrows and bolts are
included in the encumbrance of the respective weapon, with no mention of how
many arrows or bolts can reasonably be carried. One of the flaws of
oversimplification in Basic/Expert compared to AD&D, but hey. I actually
calculated that Lithanor would use, on average, 192 arrows to slay all of the
other killer trees. I also pointed out that he wouldn’t get any XP for this.
Turkey-shooting killer trees that can’t attack back is hardly a learning
experience.

Session Seven

After using
the staff of healing to heal the
wounded characters, the party continued along the path. After a short while, the
party saw shadowy forms some distance into the forest that seemed to be
following them. The party continued on, choosing to deal with these forms if
and when they revealed themselves, which they didn’t.

Shortly
afterwards, the path split, with one path continuing eastwards while another
wider path went south to a set of double doors on the edge of the indoor
forest. Asleep in the middle of the path were a unicorn and a maiden with amber
flesh, golden hair and yellow robes. Sneaky, who was still invisible, resisted
the temptation to steal the chest that one of the maiden’s arms was draped
over, and woke her up. The maiden was a bit bemused at first. She knew someone
was there but couldn’t see who was speaking to her, and so concluded that the
speaker was invisible. When the rest of the party caught up she was more
willing to converse with the party properly.

The maiden
introduced herself as Aurena. The party asked what she was doing in the middle
of the path, to which she replied “sleeping, of course”. The party learnt from
Aurena that they are not in France as they previously thought, but that the
mansion was somehow suspended between their own world and the one in which this
France place was located, in some kind of nether dimension. They mentioned the
dreams that some of the party members had had whilst they were in a catatonic
state. Aurena replied “Ooh! Dreams! Can I have a look at one?” Now it was the
party’s turn to be bemused (“Look at
our dreams?!”). Sneaky volunteered to share her dream and Aurena cast an ESP spell to view the memory of her
dream. (Sneaky wasn’t one of the characters that had become catatonic, but had
become ghost-like during the feast. When the amber bubble had descended, prior
to reverting back to corporeal form, the ghostly characters had had a vision of
being in some strange forest by a lake with the ruins of a castle nearby).
Aurena told the party that the place she saw in the vision looked like
somewhere in the province of Averoigne in France. It also turned out that
Aurena was from Glantri, not Averoigne, but was a friend of Stephen
d’Amberville and had been to Averoigne.

The party
showed Aurena the mysterious key that the rakasta had given them. Aurena told
the party that a similar key had been lost in the fountain at the centre of the
indoor forest.

The party
said farewell to Aurena and went south to investigate the double doors to the
south. Opening the doors, the party could barely see a pillared balcony,
similar to the one near the foyer where they entered the mansion, through the
gray mist. Closing the double doors, they returned north, said farewell to
Aurena (again) and headed eastwards along the forest path.

The path
wound back around and the party found themselves at the eastern end of a bridge
crossing a stream that meandered through the forest. On the bridge was a goat-headed creature who
was conversing with a troll that was hiding underneath the bridge. The
goat-headed creature told the troll that his brothers would be along any minute
and they were larger than he was and would make a better meal, so the troll let
him cross.

Sneaky
decided to venture underneath the bridge from the nearest end (still invisible)
but gave up on the idea when she saw a crocodile lurking in the stream nearby.
Meanwhile, the troll challenged the party, and Mazaramus stepped up, saying
that there was a caravan behind them that would make a far tastier meal than
they would (nice try!). The troll then said “Nah! I’ve had enough of waiting.
I’m going to eat you first, then this other lot for afters”. Sneaky had run
across the bridge after returning to the path and got into position behind the
troll, who had now climbed onto the bridge. The party charged the troll and did
some considerable damage to it, though Sneaky whiffed her backstab. Morgan took
a bit of damage from the trolls’ claw and bite attacks before the party
finished it off. Rightly suspecting that trolls regenerated, they poured oil
over the troll’s body and decapitated head and set light to it.

Continuing
across the bridge and along the path, the party arrived at a fountain in the
centre of the forest. Three gargoyles in the centre sprayed water from their
mouths into the fountain. At the base of the gargoyles was a padlocked metal
chest. The party kept their missile weapons trained on the gargoyles in case
they animated (although most of their missile weapons were non-magical). After
looking in the water itself and seeing that it apparently only contained mud,
wet leaves and a few copper coins, Sneaky entered the fountain to examine the
chest. As soon as she entered the fountain, the mud at the bottom of the water
rose up and attacked her. Having taken some damage, Sneaky quickly got out of
the fountain again, and the rest of the party rushed forward to attack what was
now a giant transparent glob emerging from the water, made visible only by the
patches of mud that were still clinging to it. One of the men-at-arms took a
whack from the amorphous creature before Lithanor finally thrust his sword
through what appeared to be its nucleus, slaying it. Mazaramus, who had an
interest in fungi and therefore had some knowledge of more basic forms of
biological life, was able to determine that the creature was a giant amoeba.

Sneaky once
again went to examine the chest, remembering this time to check for traps
(there weren’t any) before trying to pick the lock and failing. Gandi and
Morgan helped Sneaky carry the heavy chest back to the path encircling the
fountain, and Lithanor opened it with a knock
spell. Inside the chest they found 3,000 gold pieces and another ornate silver
key, this one embossed with the letter ‘A’. Sneaky tried to take the key, but
found that she was unable to move her hand any closer than about six inches to
it. Lithanor picked up the key without any problem. Sneaky asked for the key,
but was still unable to grasp it. Then she remembered that she had the other
key. It was apparent that the keys had to be carried separately. They even
tried dangling the keys by a piece of rope and found that they repelled each
other.

The party
returned to Aurena to tell her that they had successfully recovered the key
from the fountain. Aurena said that she was happy for them, but didn’t quite
understand why the party returned to tell her of this. She agreed to look after
their heavy chest of gold while they continued exploring the rest of the
mansion.

Venturing on
again, the party returned to the fountain and followed the path leading
northwards from it. After a short while, the path

headed westwards then began
to curl around to the east. At this point, the adventurers saw some
amber-furred squirrels in the forest to their right. They were gathering
acorns,which turned gold as soon as the squirrels touched them. Although,
Sneaky was tempted to try to take some golden acorns, the rest of the party
advised her not to. Aurena had previously warned the party that the normal
animals in the forest were protected by Andre-David d’Amberville, and that it
would not be a good idea to incur his wrath. In the end, Sneaky took a normal
acorn and tried to tempt a squirrel to take it. The squirrel just gave her an
angry look until she threw the acorn down. Only then did the squirrel take the
acorn.

The party
decided to carry on along the path, shortly afterwards reaching another
intersection. The forest path continued eastwards, and a wider path led a short
way north to some double doors. The party went to the double doors and, upon
opening them, found that they led into what appeared to be a large chapel, barely
illuminated by what little sunlight managed to permeate the fog and come in
through the windows. They had just ventured inside when the amber bubble once
again appeared around the party.